Love! Do not Judge!

THE WORD AND THE SAINT

September 5, 2022: Celebrating Mother Teresa of Kolkata

1 Corinthians 1: 5-8; Luke 6: 6-11

The Word today speaks to us of the ills in Christian living... at times we consider sins like adultery, fornication and killing as serious faults, and rightly so. But the harm is when we consider habits like gossiping, judging others and criticising as less grave and so go on with it as if they do not matter much. That cannot be truly Christian... According to Jesus, looking with lust is equally evil as adultery; speaking ill of the other is equally brutal as assaulting the other physically; character assasination is as criminal as killing a person! It is not exactly in what we do that the seriousness of the matter consists, but in what we are aiming or intending to do through our actions or words or dispositions. The intention is what matters most!

The saint we remember today, Mother Teresa of Kolkata, understood this perfectly and that is why she always believed and taught: if you are busy judging people, you would have no time to love them. She lived that in her life! Even with those who were around her, maligning her name and wishing her evil or destruction, she was loving and kind, generous and sacrificing. She never grudged doing good for the very ones who were hating her and spreading malicious opinions about her. She was totally "Christ-ian" in this regard - animated by nothing else but love. 

Love, is both the fundamental and the supreme disposition of a true Christian. Love is patient and kind; it endures all things! At times when we have difficulties and tribulations due to the regretable disposition of the other, let us love, not judge! Let us be filled with compassion for the suffering and the weak, as did Mother Teresa, to be called truly Christ-ians and ultimately saints or persons of the true God!